PORT ANGELES — After being shuttered for nearly a year, the Port Angeles Community Players are back — virtually — as they present “Bad Auditions … On Camera,” an interactive play.
Written by Ian McWethy and Carrie McCrossen and directed by Richard Stephens, the production will present live performances from the actors’ homes at 7 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets are $8, plus a small processing fee and can be purchased at PACommunityPlayers.org.
Purchasers will then be given a code to enter the production, which runs about 60 minutes.
“The audience gets to join the fun as Armchair Directors so you’ll want to take notes,” Stephens said. “The play could end differently each performance, so you may want to watch more than once.”
“Bad Auditions” is a comedic look at the audition process as a desperate casting director races to find a last-minute replacement actor for a top NBC court procedural drama.
The crisis goes from bad to worse as she screens one crazy, quirky actor after another, not at all helped out by her zany casting assistant.
A wide range of actors try out for a lead lawyer role and yet they each have some challenge that might make them difficult to cast, from an actor who can’t seem to stay in the camera frame, one that appears in a very odd costume, one that thinks this is an audition for a television commercial — it goes downhill from there.
The cast includes Susan Coffman, Mary Kaye O’Brien, Sarah Tucker, Stephanie Gooch, Joel Hoffman, Kailey Droz, Tim Thorn, Lynne Murphy, Mahina Hawley, Tamara Keller and Martin and Linda Gutowski.
“We know that auditioning is stressful for actors. You are putting yourself out there and hoping that they like you and will cast you,” Stephens said.
“What is not really thought of is how angst-inducing the casting process is for a director. The success or failure of a show depends on the casting choices you make,” Stephens said.
He added, “This show is a comedic look at an audition process where, if it can go wrong, it does. This is not, I will stress, how auditions actually happen at the Playhouse.
“We are proud of the great quality and diversity of the solid actors who turn out to be in our show, and certainly their comedic strengths are well displayed in this production.”
